How To Write Effective Tweets For Science Communication

Social Media & Science, Part 2:

How To Write On Twitter

Katja Reuter, PhD
Associate Director of Communications

Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI)
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)

Friday, January 18, 2013

The Anatomy of a Tweet

Mention: Another user's Twitter
Retweet: Re-posting of someone Content of the message
username.
else's Tweet

RT@FasterCures: "We overpay for health care, but we
underpay the people we expect to fix it“
@matthewherper #Forbes http://t.co/5SDcQRxM+ #in
Shortened link

Hashtag marks keywords or
Mention: Another topics in a tweet. Can occur
By adding a “+” sign in the end of a
user's Twitter anywhere in the tweet.
url you can track the clicks
username.
statistics for any bitly URL without
having to register, login or install
any software. Appears as update
on integrated
LinkedIn pages.
Hashtagged keyword: Used to categorize messages. People
follow particular hashtags. Those that become popular are
often trending topics.


Types of Tweets

Normal tweet: Any message with up to 140 characters posted to Twitter.

Mention: A Tweet containing another user's Twitter username, preceded by the "@"
symbol.

Example: This is very useful advice on participant recruitment. @PRSatCTSI

@Reply: Begins with another user's username and is in reply to one of their Tweets.

Example: @FasterCures "It is no longer sufﬁcient to have a novel product that’s safe

and effective and gets through #FDA #WhoWillPay?

Direct message: A personal message sent directly to someone who follows you or sent
directly to you from someone you follow.

Retweet: Re-posting of someone else's Tweet. They are distinguished by the retweet
icon (RT) and the name of the user who retweeted the Tweet.

Example: RT @ImSatCTSI: National Assoc. of Public #Hospitals & #HealthSystems

Aannual Meeting San Francisco June 20-22


Things to keep in mind when
you write a tweet...


How to Write a Tweet

1. Start a tweet using action verbs, or via and @. Suggest your reader
do something.

Examples:

Find tips @link to design a successful clinical #research study.

@FasterCures asked interesting Q about #mobile software in #healthcare.
"Will government regulators suffocate it?" http://on.wsj.com/MWGIqi



2. Use a capital letter with each new sentence.

3. Hyphens, periods and colons are the most retweetable
punctuation. (Ref. http://danzarrella.com/science-of-retweets.pdf, 2009)



4. Focus on keywords: Include the most relevant keywords related to
your ﬁeld. Anticipate your readers’ search behavior. (Ref. http://danzarrella.com/science-of-
retweets.pdf, 2009)

Examples:

"We cannot conquer disease without engaging patients" MI's Margaret
Anderson http://bit.ly/KgGK9Y #disease #NIH

Learn from routine site visits conducted by the #QualityImprovement Unit
(QIU). Get training at #UCSF, Aug 7. bit.ly/JOP4wq

Approx. 2500 #OrphanDrugs approved to date with an average #trial size of
100 patients. Jim Healy @soﬁnnova @orphandrugsum #ctsi



5. Place the link about 25% of the way through the tweet.

Linked tweets have an 86% higher retweet rate than their linkless counterparts.

Examples:

Find tips @link to design a successful clinical #research study.

See new article @http://bit.ly/JBlGtY on preparing hispanic students for the
real world: problem-based learning projects. @ccph201ian

Ref. Dan Zarrella, HubSpot; http://mashable.com/2012/06/26/marketers-failing-twitter-study/, 2012



6. Include “Please RT” on your tweets if possible. People are more likely to
respond favorably to “please” and retweet.

If you ask followers to “RT,” you’ll get a 12X higher retweet rate.
If you spell out the word “retweet,” that ﬁgure jumps to 23X.

Ref. http://mashable.com/2012/06/26/marketers-failing-twitter-study/, 2012;
http://danzarrella.com/science-of-retweets.pdf, 2009


Words that Are Least Likely to Get Re-Tweets

Ref. http://danzarrella.com/science-of-retweets.pdf, 2009



7. Include numbers: People react to numbers, especially when
associated with funding, impact & results.

Examples:

About 5 cents of every U.S. health dollar goes to medical research.
#investincures

500+ #UCSF researchers beneﬁted from #ConsultationService last
year.View all areas of expert advice @http://bit.ly/vb1maP+ and get
your ﬁrst hour for free.

10 recommendations aim for more transparent #ClinicalTrial reports
http://sbne.ws/r/aIil #SmartBrief



8. Entice readers to go to your webpage for more information to
increase traffic.

Examples:

See new article @http://bit.ly/ILXDZa on UCSF clinicians who get new
ammunition in fight against childhood. #cancers #in

Successful leadership in #teamscience. Join #UCSF workshop for faculty
leaders, June 5. bit.ly/JONNp1

Find UCSF experts and their networks with a few clicks. #UCSFProfiles bit.ly/
yjhd62



9. Mention inﬂuential individuals & groups that might be
interested in a tweet. They’ll be likely to read it, tweet about it, re-tweet it, and
potentially they’ll start following you.

Example:

UCSF gene therapy may offer relief for 116 million Americans with
#ChronicPain http://bit.ly/Ka6odU @ccfa @CrohnsandUC@aapainmanage
#ctsa

Q&A with @WSJHealthBlog Amy Dockser Marcus "Working toward a
new social contract for #healthcare"



10. Keep it short and to the point. To allow maximum retweetability,
write 120 characters or less to leave room for others to retweet your message.

Keep them to fewer than 100 characters.

Tweets of fewer than 100 characters got a 17% higher engagement rate
than other, comparatively windy tweets.

Ref. http://mashable.com/2012/06/26/marketers-failing-twitter-study/



11. Include images in tweets.

Posts with images have double the engagement of those without even
though users can’t see them until they click on them. (Ref. http://mashable.com/
2012/06/26/marketers-failing-twitter-study/)



12. Learn Twitter lingo, for example:

 FF = Follow Friday
 RLRT = Real Life Retweet (used to quote sth. a person said in "real life")
 atm = at the moment
 lol = laugh out loud.

See Twitter Glossary http://bit.ly/MydFJn+ | http://mashable.com/2008/11/15/twitterspeak/



13. Use hashtags (#)

One that already has some popularity in search engines or new ones that your
organization wants to establish.

Tweets with hashtags get twice the engagement of those without.

Best practices: 1-2 hashtags per tweet.

If you add a third, you’ll begin to see an average 17% dropoff in engagement.

Use hashtags only on Tweets relevant to the topic.

Example: Join @Predoc at UCSF’s Students Research Festival this week & learn
about the latest research trends Bit.ly link. #diabetes #ResearchMatters


Shorten URLs

14. Use one of the free URL shortening services:

Bitly (https://bitly.com/)

Tiny URL (http://tinyurl.com/)

Google (http://goo.gl/)

More examples @http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/01/11-best-url-shortening-
services-vote-your-favorite/

Note: Microblogging Management Tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer offer URL shorting functionality
as well.


When To Send Your Tweets

15. Time and schedule your tweets:

Use Microblogging Management Tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer to schedule
your tweets.

Tweets between 8 am -7 pm got 30% higher engagement rates than those those
that occurred after-hours. Note: Facebook posts on “non-busy hours” get 17%
higher engagement.(Ref. http://mashable.com/2012/06/26/marketers-failing-twitter-study/)

Tools such as Tweriod helps you ﬁnd out the best time to tweet — when your
followers are active on Twitter.

“Sweet Spot”: Four tweets/day


CTSI is a member of the National Institutes of Health-funded Clinical and
Translational Science Awards network.

Under the banner of "Accelerating Research to Improve Health," it
provides a wide range of services for researchers, and promotes online
collaboration and networking tools such as UCSF Profiles.


Katja Reuter, PhD
Associate Director of Communications

Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI)
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)

ctsi.ucsf.edu
https://twitter.com/CTSIatUCSF


How To Write Effective Tweets For Science Communication

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